In order to provide you with the best online experience this website uses cookies.

Information cookies

Cookies are short reports that are sent and stored on the hard drive of the user's computer through your browser when it connects to a web. Cookies can be used to collect and store user data while connected to provide you the requested services and sometimes tend not to keep. Cookies can be themselves or others.

There are several types of cookies:

Technical cookies that facilitate user navigation and use of the various options or services offered by the web as identify the session, allow access to certain areas, facilitate orders, purchases, filling out forms, registration, security, facilitating functionalities (videos, social networks, etc..).

Customization cookies that allow users to access services according to their preferences (language, browser, configuration, etc..).

Analytical cookies which allow anonymous analysis of the behavior of web users and allow to measure user activity and develop navigation profiles in order to improve the websites.

So when you access our website, in compliance with Article 22 of Law 34/2002 of the Information Society Services, in the analytical cookies treatment, we have requested your consent to their use. All of this is to improve our services. We use Google Analytics to collect anonymous statistical information such as the number of visitors to our site. Cookies added by Google Analytics are governed by the privacy policies of Google Analytics. If you want you can disable cookies from Google Analytics.

However, please note that you can enable or disable cookies by following the instructions of your browser.

S1809 What did your Grandparents do? An Intercultural Exploration of Individual Life Histories

Professors

Simon C. Partner (Duke University)

Schedule

Tuesday

From 17:00

to 18:30

Thursday

From 17:00

to 18:30

This course will focus on the stories of individuals and their experiences of the great historical events of the 20th century. Students will read from a wide variety of oral histories, memoirs, biographies and primary source materials such as diaries and letters, with an emphasis on the lives of relatively unknown figures such as farmers, merchants and housewives. The goal will be to both understand and connect imaginatively with the life experiences of the people who lived history rather than those who made it.

In addition to the stories themselves, students will also engage in the critical analysis of life histories: how does a historian construct the narrative of a life? What gives a life meaning? What are the pitfalls of reconstructed experience – e.g. selective memory, ideological bias, and narrative over-simplification? And how do we get around those pitfalls to construct historically responsible life histories? Materials will draw on available English-language (or translated) resources from around the world, and students will engage in the comparative analysis of life experiences in different societies, under different political systems, and at different stages of economic development.

Goals of the class:

Develop skills in critical analysis of theories of narrative

Develop an understanding of various approaches to historical research and representation

Develop intercultural awareness through exchange with students of different backgrounds

Gain exposure to diverse experiences of postwar European, American and Asian history

Learn and understand differences between primary and secondary source materials

Develop skills in documentary source research

Develop skills in oral history research

Develop skills in comparative historiography

Develop skills in historical writing and story-telling

Develop presentation skills

Teaching method

There will be weekly assigned readings (about 30 pages per week), which students are expected to read and discuss.

During the course of the semester, each student will prepare a research project that includes investigation of a life-story based on either oral history interviews or documentary sources. The project will include certain graded milestones, including:

Preparation of historical reading list, based on sources available through the internet or through students’ home university libraries.

Workshop readings: Students will have opportunities to share their work in progress with their peers, during a series of reading workshops.

Final Presentations: Students will present their work to their peers, and may have further opportunities to present to a general audience at Duke’s Story Lab.

Final project: A “chapter” from your subject’s life. This should incorporate as background material a description of your research methods and a broad outline of your subject’s life story. The body of your project should narrate a significant period or event in your subject’s life, with historical contextualization in relation to the wider history of an era and place in which your subject lived. Students may submit their final project as essay, website, podcast, documentary, or any other medium they have agreed with the instructor. FINAL PROJECT DEADLINE IS MAY 30 AT 5:00PM.

Evaluation

Grades will be based on the following:

Final project: 50% of grade

Presentations and readings in class: 30% of grade

Class participation: 20% of grade. Your participation grade will assess your reading of the weekly assigned materials. The only way I know you have read these materials is if you participate actively in discussion. If you are not a participator, you can alternatively provide me with written summaries of each week’s reading(s).